Robot-Aided Interactive Design for Wind Tunnel Experiments

The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of architectural geometry and materiality on airflow around buildings. For this purpose it is relevant to look for interactive design and analysis platforms that enable the analysis of architectural form and material variations while promoting the participation of designers in the analysis process. Today wind tunnel experiments are mostly deployed for design post-rationalization purposes, complicating the interaction between designers and the experimental environment, and constraining the number of design tests to be performed. The following research proposes to collapse the modeling and sensing processes within the wind tunnel with the aid of a robotic arm, to enable a real time design feedback informed by airflow analysis. Building geometry and surface studies have been conducted aided by robotic modeling and sensing, in a low speed and turbulence open circuit wind tunnel for a single building array and street canyon configuration. The recorded velocity profile variations reveal that mean flow statistics are sensitive to the texture variations.